


The True Life and Times of Grelle Sutcliff, as Recounted to the Division on the Occasion of her Death and Subsequent Reaping

by secretly_a_hamster



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler, Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler manga
Genre: Canon Transgender Character, F/M, Grelle Sutcliff - Freeform, Grelliam, Ignore the tags, Kissing, M/M, OC, Tags May Change, Transgender Issues, William T. Spears - Freeform, character backstory, english gentry, eventually, everything else, gratitous literary porn, lots of other stuff that will be added as and when it happens, mentioned self-harm, non-canon backstory, transgender character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-18
Updated: 2015-08-13
Packaged: 2018-03-31 04:08:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3963802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretly_a_hamster/pseuds/secretly_a_hamster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The backstory Grelle wanted me to write, because she has taken over my soul and is my favourite kuro character.<br/>Or: what Grelle didn't want you to know: her autobiography, but - IT'S UNAUTHORIZED! just joking - I don't have a death wish and thus would never publish anything Grelle didn't want me to.<br/>WIP, please check the tags before you read as there is some potentially triggering material. Thanks!<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! This is my first work in the kuro fandom; pleased to meet y'all!  
> This first chapter is a prologue of sorts, and Grelle is still human and not messed up (…yet, we'll get to that) If you're here for Grelliam, I'm sorry; William is not meant to make an appearance for a while! If you're here for Grelle, though (and grelliam, cuz there'll be some of that if you can wait) read on!  
> Currently this fic is pairingless, it's just warming up. Obviously there will be grelliam, and others. Look forward to it :)  
> Discaimer - I beta for myself and sometimes errors do slip through! If you see anything, please do point it out!  
> Discalmer II- I am not Yana Toboso and do not own anything. Sadly.  
> Hope you enjoy it :D

Near the end of the year 1699, almost the dawn of the new century, a man named Richard Sutcliff was being jolted in a horse-carriage pulled by a duo of incompetent horses. It was eleven o’clock at night, and he was anxious to return home to his wife and two children – and to perhaps meet his third child.  
Baronet Sutcliff’s wife, Anna Sutcliff née Von Essen, was currently nine months and two days pregnant. That afternoon he had received a letter at work from his eldest, Lucy, telling him that her mother was in labour and that little Susannah was very excited because the baby might be born on Christmas day. It being the twenty-fourth of December, the child might very possibly share their birthday with Jesus Christ.  
As we were in the middle of rural England, Sussex I believe, it was snowing heavily. This touch of bad luck delayed Richard terribly and it must have been one in the morning before he arrived back at the manor. He dismissed the carriage and strode up the steps, with the servants opening the great oak doors for him.  
“Papa! You’re home!” his daughters, Lucy and Susannah, aged ten and seven respectively, jumped on him the minute he was through the doors, kissing him on both his cheeks. “Merry Christmas!”  
Richard ruffled his daughters’ hair before asking, “Why are you two up? I know that it’s Christmas – just - but it’s so late...”  
“We stayed up to help the midwife,” said Susannah, “She left ten minutes ago. Because Mama had the baby. Do you want to see them?”  
He replied that yes, of course he did and the two girls took their father up to the master bedroom. There he turned before entering:  
“Dears, would you mind terribly just going to bed? Your mother will be very tired, and it’s half-one already! “  
The girls ran off, giggling. They didn’t want to antagonise their father – after all, they really should be in bed. Susannah was exhausted, and even Lucy was yawning. Richard pushed open the door, calling softly to his wife so as not to wake the baby if he or she was asleep.  
Anna was awake, though sleepy, and her newborn child lay on her stomach. He or she – probably a she, judging by the long red curls – looked up at her father, blinking. Anna smiled up at her husband, who moved to kiss her forehead.   
“What do you think? I’ve finally given you a son!” she exclaimed proudly.  
What? thought Richard, He isn’t a girl? Wonderful! Richard needed a male heir to pass his lands and title on to, and much as he loved his daughters they couldn’t inherit.  
“He’s lovely.” said Richard happily, “Let’s call him Henry.”  
Anna gave a little laugh, “With Grelle as a middle name! I know it’s a girl’s name, and it’s German, but it would please mother... You know she’s writing her will. Anyway, both the girls have English names, so.”  
“Alright,” Richard sighed, resigned. “Henry Grelle Sutcliff it is. Though I wish you could’ve picked a German boy’s name.”   
“Richard! I don’t like any German boy’s names!”  
This should give you a good idea of the Sutcliffs. They are fine people, kind and god-fearing. Richard never raised a hand to his wife, nor to his children, as long as Anna was alive. He loved her and their children. That is why I hate to recount what happens next, but I must.  
The family did not deserve such hardship, and if Anna had merely lived I feel sure that their happiness would never have wavered. In order to recount the next part of their lives, I shall only talk briefly of the next seven years, as they are not important but they are informative.  
Grelle and his sisters grew up most normally over the next few years. As the son of a baronet, Grelle learnt to hunt and fish, to speak Latin and French, and to ride from a young age. His father, with great confidence in him, first gave him a sword at age four, and he proved a prodigy.  
Grelle was only allowed a blade under supervision, however. He had a horrible habit of cutting at his own flesh, ‘to see the blood’ and ‘because it made him forget’. Nobody quite knew what he was trying to forget. It was assumed that such tendencies were due to his extreme youth, and that they would fade away with age.   
Ah, I expect you shall be wondering why I am referring to him as Grelle when his name is, as we have seen, Henry. Well, Grelle always seemed to suit him better. Henry means ‘estate ruler’, which Grelle would undoubtedly grow up to be, but the moniker did not befit him. Grelle, ‘an irritable, irascible person’, became him more.  
Also, around the age of three, Grelle realised that Henry’ was a masculine appellation whilst ‘Grelle’ was a female appellation. He began to call Henry ‘a horrible boy’s name’ and to tell all and sundry that his name was Grelle, because he was a little girl and so should have a girl’s name.  
His parents were most displeased with this situation. They would tell Grelle that he was a boy and most definitely not a girl, and insist on referring to him with male pronouns. Grelle would cry whenever they did so, and so persistent was he that they eventually wrote it off as a childhood folly that would be forgotten with age, similar to the self-mutilation.  
Nevertheless, his sisters went along with Grelle’s choice, and would dress him in their clothes and bonnets. These were the happiest memories of Grelle’s childhood. He was too young to yet be condemned for who he was, and he would play for hours in the shade of the poplar trees that lined his estate, wearing his kind sisters’ finest silks.  
I will now begin to refer to Grelle as ‘she’ and ‘her’, as she would have wished.   
As you can see, Grelle had an almost idyllic infancy, at least until she was roughly seven years old. Well, I say idyllic, but it was troubled in later years, for reasons I shall later recount. I am sure you can guess why, although there are some things even the most astute among you could not dream of perceiving so early on.  
I will tell you about this later, for my throat is now quite dry, so I shall stop myself here. Obviously I will later continue , but for now I must retire.  
Good day. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The tragic one. And I do mean tragic...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> William should appear in the next chapter ^^  
> Please remember the warnings on the previous chapter; if this triggers you in any way, please don't read.

Grelle’s memories of her mother were few and far between. Even as a child she had been cared for mostly by her sisters and her nannies, her father busy with his work and her mother bedridden by yet another illness. Still, when her mother was well she loved to spend time with her children. The same was not always true of her father.  
Not that Grelle minded. She idolised her mother, believing her Mary Magdalene, Queen Anne and Boudicca combined. She was seven; no-one tried to discourage her from this view, merely chuckling.  
Nevertheless, do not think Anna was not worthy of such praise. To start, but not to laud unnecessarily, she was by no means a vain woman. She very rarely wore more than her nightgown as sickness kept her isolated in her rooms. Her most prized possession was, however, her red silk overcoat.  
It was a beautiful thing, the exact crimson colour of blood and roses. Long and tapered, with a flare at the wearer’s waist and an ebony taffeta lining, it had been Richard’s wedding present to his young bride.  
Grelle thought it the most wonderful thing she had ever seen. After all it was her mother’s, so it must be. Anna wore this garment in almost all of Grelle’s memories of her, and it has especial significance in her favourite remembrance.  
Her favourite recollection of her mother, one that, of course, she no longer has, is of a warm spring day. If my calculations are correct, it was the 3rd of May 1707, two days after the unification of England and Scotland – the day of Anna’s untimely demise.  
As was Grelle’s custom, she had dressed that morning in a fine dress in the French style. At seven, it was perhaps a little old for her, but she liked it. Her father greeted her at the breakfast table with a grunt and a ‘bloody hell, you’re seven, dress properly’ as usual, and her sister Susannah with a hug and a demure smile, as befitted a young woman of almost fourteen.  
Her mother was unwell, coughing and feverous, and Lucy had been married in the January of that year, so their absence was no surprise to Grelle. They had visited Lucy and her new husband, Earl something-or-other, twice, and Grelle didn’t really miss her that much anyway.  
For breakfast Grelle ate an egg, some bacon and three slices of toast with gusto. Then she went back up to her room, and looked at herself in the glass. If she looked like a girl, she would smile and go downstairs, to the gardens. If she looked like a boy, she would cry, just a little, and cut herself. So was her routine.  
It had been her routine for the last year. Until then, she had not been allowed near sharp objects alone, for obvious reasons. Now she pretended to be old enough to ‘know better’. To be cured.  
Frankly, she didn’t want to be cured. It was a way of coping. She knew no other way.  
After all, Grelle wasn’t a simpleton. She knew that at some point, she would have to become Henry for the rest of her life - society demanded it of her. She tried her very, very hardest to forget that.  
But she couldn’t, not always...  
And I will not examine her psychology for ignominious scrutiny by you ingrates here on the Board, so if you will stop asking these inane questions and let me finish what I am saying - Yes, I understand that my conduct will be evaluated at this hearing. I apologise.  
In any case, let us get on with it. Grelle would then go down to the garden, despite her dress being highly unsuitable for running around and climbing trees in. More than half of her clothes had been ripped in some manner due to her oft over-vigorous activity.  
She amused herself for a while, playing at pirates and watching her father write in the conservatory from the oft-clambered sycamore tree. After frankly not that long, she grew bored, and went to find her sister.  
Susannah, older than Grelle by some seven years, now spent most of her time learning the arts necessary for a young lady of high birth: embroidery, music, and art, in preparation for her marriage. All things quite different from Grelle’s pursuits; as she was still made to learn to fence – which secretly she rather enjoyed – and learn mathematics.  
Nevertheless Susannah usually had time for Grelle, giving up her studies with a small smile and a ‘just this once, all right?’ Thus Grelle was rather put out when her sister, having trouble with a particularly difficult piece for the flute by Telemann, snapped at her and left her to her own devices.  
Rejected, Grelle went into her mother’s room. Normally, the children were forbidden from her bedchamber, for fear they would either contract her current malady or somehow disturb her. This was a great source of distress both to Anna and to Susannah and Grelle, but Richard stood firm.  
Grelle, however, was never very good at following orders, especially when sad, bored or distressed. She would occasionally visit her mother, whenever she was unhappy or world-weary. Her father always found out, though, so it wasn’t continuously worth it.  
Today, Anna was sitting up in bed reading a battered edition of Les Fables de la Fontaine. The kerchief on her side-table was dotted with menacing little drops of umber, and her cough seemed to have worsened since Grelle last saw her.  
Absolutely certain she wasn’t meant to be here, Grelle hesitated in the doorway a moment before entering, the knot in her stomach overruled by the desire to be diverted from the all-engulfing boredom. It was a plague of angry bees inside her head, urging her to do something.  
“Mama?” Grelle asked hesitantly, unsure as to whether she was about to be unceremoniously kicked out of the room by her father or not.  
“Grelle?” Anna seemed taken aback, but she was smiling. “Again? You’re not supposed to be here... Ah, but who cares? Come here, Liebling.”  
Grelle jumped right up onto her mother’s bed, into her open arms. She was content for a moment, but could not stop herself from wondering aloud:  
“Mama, why are you wearing your overcoat in bed? You must be hot.” It’s so lovely... You’ll crease it, she thought, stroking the silken sleeve.  
“I like it, that’s why. It’s the only pretty thing I have left... And,” she added quietly, “It doesn’t show the blood like my nightdress...”  
“Blood? I want to see!”  
“Shh. Never mind, Liebling. Settle down, I’ll read you some-“ she convulsed, coughing, spattering the kerchief with crimson red. “Some of this-“  
“Mama?”  
“I’m fine. Now, is your French good enough for this? La cigale, ayant chanté tout l’été, se trouva fort dépourvue...”  
So they read, Grelle and her mother pointedly ignoring the horrible, wracking coughs tearing through Anna in ghastly spasms, until finally Anna said something.  
“Liebling, I don’t feel too well. Will you go get your father for me?”  
“Yes, Mama, of course.”  
“Wait, take this with you, will you? Wear it.” Anna stripped off her overcoat, handing it to Grelle. It was far too big for her, entirely engulfing her skinny young body.  
She wore it anyway, almost tripping over it in her haste to get down the stairs and find her father. He was, as usual, in the conservatory.  
“Papa?” she said hesitantly.  
“Yes, Grelle? I’m busy.”  
“Papa,” she paused, “Papa, I think Mama is dying.”  
Grelle didn’t attend the funeral, I know that. She spent the day curled in her bed, still wearing the red overcoat that she had refused to remove. Tears wracked her small body just like the coughs that had whirled through her dead mother.  
Grelle cried, and when the pain burst over her like boiling water and she just couldn’t stand it anymore, the letter-knife helped. She wondered if her blood looked anything like her mother’s. It must; all blood looked the same.  
Then, in the evening, Susannah came in. Her eyes were red and puffy and her expression drawn.  
“Go away,” said Grelle emotionlessly.  
“Grelle,”  
“Go away!”  
“All right. But before I go, you need to know that father is sending us to Aunt Grace’s. Indefinitely. He says he can’t cope.”  
“So?”  
“Well, you needed to know. And, Grelle, you can’t be a girl at Aunt Grace’s. She’d have a fit. You’re going to have to start being Henry.”  
Susannah left, closing the door behind her. Grelle only cried harder.  
Poor girl.  
Anyway, I do believe it’s six o’clock? Time for me to go then. I have a reap at half past. Good day. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I think young Grelle looks a lot like this, though without the lute or the wings:  
> http://artseverydayliving.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/playing-putto-musician-angel-1518.jpg  
> (copy and paste is your friend here, i have no idea how to imbed links)  
> Yes, I am perverting Renaissance art for my own purposes. I'm sorry.  
> Hugs to everyone who commented and gave kudos! It's very kind of you ^^


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here appeareth William!

Precisely a week after the funeral, Grell and her sister were travelling to their aunt’s in the family’s horse-drawn carriage. Some said their father was being overly hasty in sending them away so soon after their mother’s passing, but it was not uncommon at the time for widowers to send their children away to finish up their education at a relative’s. The feelings of the children were not taken into consideration.  
Susannah sat in the corner, dressed in her new mourning clothes. Grelle knew that she detested them; her sister’s fair complexion lent itself more to pale greens and blues. She knew she looked sallow in black. She was reading, a lace handkerchief pressed to her left eye. She had been distant with Grelle ever since Anna’s death.   
This made Grelle want to cry even more than she did already. She went over her list of grievances in her head, which hadn’t been quite right for a whole week now.  
Firstly, her mother was dead. She shouldn’t be! She shouldn’t be! What kind of a God would slay her gentle mother? The Lord to whom she prayed was meant to be merciful and good.  
Secondly, her hair had been hacked off, and she had been forcibly breeched at the late, late age of seven. The horrible shirt, waistcoat, jacket and the pair of britches she was wearing made her want to gag.  
Thirdly, everyone hated her. Her father saw her as a burden, her sister as a ghost. This Aunt Grace thought she was a boy, and so did her surely awful children, William – wasn’t he Susannah’s fiancé, she couldn’t remember and her memory was normally almost photographic, so why? – and Elizabeth. Grelle hadn’t met them, and she didn’t much care to, under these circumstances.  
Fourthly, her mother was dead. And surely it was her fault, for why else would she be sent away?  
Grelle hiccupped. She could feel tears gathering in the corners of her eyes, but she didn’t want to cry in front of her sister. So she sat, miserable, oculi burning, head pounding, fingernail digging into the soft skin of her palm, hating herself so much more than anyone else could ever hate her.  
She pulled the material of the overcoat – her mother’s overcoat – closer to her, and sobbed quietly into the collar. Susannah didn’t even notice, caught up in her own personal sorrow.  
They arrived on the 13th of May 1707, a Friday. Grelle would’ve laughed if the whole thing weren’t so tragic. Aunt Grace had sent out servants for their trunks, but only Susannah had anything much. Grelle had had to leave all her pretty things at home, as they were girl’s particulars, and as a result had only one suitcase.  
Aunt Grace herself and her children greeted them in the hall, with the help shadows that appeared only to take their heavy travelling cloaks. Grelle looked down at her shoes as her sister embraced them warmly. She didn’t know them at all well. She’d met Uncle Rowland once, before he departed to a higher plain, but not the rest. She stood there, awkwardly, wishing to do nothing more than depart to her room and ululate her grief once more.  
She somehow snuck a glimpse of her hosts despite fixing her gaze so staidly at her boots. Aunt Grace was a sturdy woman of some thirty-five years, with her brother’s – Grelle’s father’s – dirty brown-blond hair. Her small, squinting, almost piggish watery blue eyes and the rolls of fat around her middle gave an almost rapacious impression. Her dusty black bereavement clothing didn’t fit her; in fact, she was almost bulging out of it. Grelle felt a sudden desire to scream at her, as she talked about how sorry she felt, and how sad she was for two such young children... It was wretched.  
Elizabeth transpired thankfully unlike her mother, saying little and seeming irritated at having to be there. Her expression of haughty disdain endeared her to Grelle, who had not yet mastered such a facial contortion but greatly wanted to employ one. Elizabeth’s hair was raven’s wing black, as Uncle Rowland’s had been, and with her cold ice-blue eyes and overly lacy obsidian frock she could almost have been a spectre haunting a Gothic cathedral. Grelle longed to wear her dress, though even she found it showy for a girl of sixteen.   
William looked very similar to his sister, with the same dark hair and gelid eyes. He made, however, a very different impression, almost business-like in his plain suit - Grelle barely kept herself from rolling her eyes, didn’t this William realise that brocade and taffeta were in fashion, even if he was twelve - and calculating manner. He did not even pretend to be stricken by grief, or at all interested in the visitors. He glanced, once, at Grelle, insinuating in that one look that she was far beneath his notice. The stuck-up prat! Two can play at that game, she thought.  
Grelle abruptly realised that Susannah was looking at her, expecting her to say something. She could not, it appeared, get away from talking to these relatives of hers. Public convention demanded speech of her.   
“Thankyouforhavingme,” she mumbled all at once.  
“Grel-Henry!” hissed Susannah, “Be polite, speak up.”  
Grelle sighed, “Thank you for having me,” she enunciated carefully, looking her sister in the eye. “I’m looking forward to spending time with you all, albeit under these unfortunate circumstances. I apologize greatly for being so quiet earlier. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m very tired from travelling...”  
Hah, that’ll show them! Grelle could be a right little politician when she wanted to be, and she knew it. It was merely a matter of acting, of wearing the right skin. It took people by surprise, for they oft thought her another squalling infant. She could be adult when she wished – but it was easier to act the child.  
Aunt Grace enveloped her in an entirely unwanted hug without warning, tears in her eyes. Through her aunt’s bosom, she noticed the shock on her sister’s and cousins’ faces. She grinned to herself, then she remembered how different her mother’s hugs had been to her Aunt’s, how much bonier and gentler.... She could feel tears welling up in the corners of her eyes, and she blinked furiously.  
When Aunt Grace finally let go of her, she began to speak:  
“Oh, the darling child.... So young, but forced to be so adult! If you are tired, Henry, William will be delighted to show you to your room. You two can bond together. Susannah, you will want to stay and take tea with Elizabeth and me before retiring? We’ve been so looking forward to seeing you...”  
“Yes, of course, Aunt.” replied Susannah.  
“Mother, is Henry staying in the Red Room?” asked William briskly.  
“Yes, William. Didn’t I tell you earlier?” said Aunt Grace, “Now hurry along, dear, poor little Henry is exhausted!”  
“...yes, Mother.” he turned to Grelle, “Come along, Henry, it’s this way.”  
Grelle waited until they were out of earshot to mumble to William, “Call me Grelle, all right?” She was too fatigued to care about what he might think, and each time someone called her Henry she felt an overwhelming sense of utter wrongness.  
William turned. “That’s a girls’ name, idiot.” He said bluntly.  
“Well, I’m a girl.”   
“Biologically?”  
“What?” God, she was tired.  
“I assume not then,” William stated, raising one eyebrow. “If you were, why dress as a boy?”  
“Oh, forget it...”  
“No. I can’t say I understand for one moment what you’re on about, but I suppose that if that’s what you want you have the right to be as eccentric as you desire.” William fiddled awkwardly with his eyeglasses.  
An awkward silence followed, broken only by their arrival at Grelle’s bedroom for the foreseeable future. William was walking off down the corridor when Grelle shouted after him.  
“Don’t tell anyone else, you hear me?”  
William paused, “Were you confiding a secret to me, then?” he questioned, and Grelle could’ve sworn she saw the ghost of a smile on his lips.  
“Oh, bloody hell!”  
“Be ladylike.” It was a statement that made Grelle want to gnash her teeth in pure infuriation. Worst of all, William seemed to be enjoying himself.  
“Please?”  
“I’m not the type to kiss and tell. I promise I shan’t tell anyone without your prior permission.” He sounded completely serious, and Grelle let out a breath she hadn’t even known she’d been holding. “Good night... Grelle.”  
Grelle shut her bedroom door. She noticed nothing of the room, being somewhat preoccupied and the chamber being dark. Changing quickly into her nightgown, she washed her face and fell into bed.  
Too spent not to sleep, however grief-stricken, she still spent a good quarter of an hour pummelling a pillow at the thought of William. He was just so aggravating, so irksome! After a while, she began to cry that her mother would never meet him, and laughing that this annoyed her so.   
It was laughing hysterically and wailing in equal measure that she finally fell asleep.  
And now I must leave. You’ve kept me long enough, and I have paperwork to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really sorry for the delay in posting. I've had exams and then I went on holiday. I hope this makes up for it!  
> …on an unrelated note, I find young Grelle and William really cute…


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The grelliam moment you've all been waiting for.

The next day, Grelle realised that life here was much the same as before, only the people were much more unpleasant than anything she’d ever experienced at home.  
Aunt Grace had insisted that everybody take breakfast together ‘to get to know the others better’. Grelle simply decided that she didn’t want to get to know any of them. In her opinion, Elizabeth was a stuck-up harpy; William was a meal-worm – excuse my laughter - that had spent exactly two minutes at the table before excusing himself and had ignored her; and her aunt an overbearing overemotional Cromwellian.  
Susannah had claimed her studies and exhaustion and so had not attended the horribly dismal family breakfast. Grelle wished that she had had the foresight to do the same. She had no appetite and was glad to take her leave after a good half-hour, during which Elizabeth ignored her most pointedly and Aunt Grace chatted on in supremely moronic fashion.  
She had nothing to do that day – her aunt had not yet engaged for her any tutors – yet instead of enjoying herself she felt a magnificent ennui. A bout of fencing, or mayhap a game of some sort, cricket or the like, would have cured her. However, she had no-one with which to play; William did not seem the type to enjoy such things and anyway she did not even know where the stables were, much less if there were cricket grounds in the Spears’ estate.  
Grelle was bored, supremely so. She did not make a habit of boredom, for she found it deeply unpleasant.  
What to do? She had not explored the manor house, never mind the gardens, but they were vaster than at home. If she were to get lost, she presumably would not be able to find her way back, and she could think of no greater humiliation than needing ‘rescue’.  
To examine the full extent of the estate was folly. Were she to inspect over a small, controlled area, one from which she was certain to return safely, though... Well, that was smarter and just as entertaining.  
Grelle set off at once, eager to delve into the attic. She had chosen this part of the house as it was 1) the most interesting and 2) easily accessible by means of a long, winding and rather abrupt staircase. Merely by ascending these stairs one travelled from the dining room all the way to the attics, and it was very hard to lose oneself.  
Not being sure what to expect, she mounted the stairway with trepidation. I say she was not sure what she would find – I lie. Grelle expected most like a dusty room full of trunks, paintings covered with canvas, viz, a normal sort of attic. She found a pigeon loft.  
She also found a rather angry William, who was not used to visitors to his inner sanctum.   
“What on earth are you doing here!” He yelled, much to Grelle’s astonishment. She knew he hadn’t been expecting her, but really!  
“I was just having a bit of a look around, that’s all,” she said, surprising even herself by the steadiness of her voice, “if you want me to go I’ll go, William. All right?”  
“No, no, wait... I mean, you can stay. If you want to but. If you don’t you don’t have to.”   
Grelle almost laughed. Last night William had been so old, confident. He had been completely in charge of the situation; he had held all the cards and Grelle had been entirely at his mercy.  
Now he was softer, almost fragile. She could see a desperately lonely boy – no, man, definitely a man – behind the sedulous façade. She wondered, strangely uneasy, if he also could see behind her walls, walls she knew to be imperfect, cracking even at that very moment.  
“William...” She whispered, filled with an almost maternal tenderness.  
“But if you stay, sit in the corner and don’t bother me. Pigeon-rearing is an important business, and I can’t deal with any interruption.”  
There was an overstuffed, old, dusty armchair in the corner. Grelle sat, lifting imaginary skirts, a smile toying with the corner of her mouth. The moment of insight, of fallen barriers had been lost, leaving her wondering if it had all been a dream.  
But is life anything other than a waking dream?  
William engaged himself with his birds. Grelle didn’t understand what he was doing – she had never had any interest in pigeons - though she found him fascinating. The movements of his body were so different from her own; they were controlled, minute, somehow seductive. They were above all masculine.   
A sensation of being watched tore Grelle from her reverie. She could easily see that William was watching her out of the corner of his eye. It was...crude, unsubtle. She loved it.  
In response, she waved her hand lazily in William’s direction. He blushed and turned away, burying himself in his work as he exclaimed:  
“Grelle!”  
“What?”  
“A, a lady should not behave so in the company of a gentleman...”  
“Why not? Besides I’m seven, I’m not a lady and you’re engaged!” She could not help but say the last with a certain petulance to her tone.  
William sighed, looked up from his fowl and came to sit next to her. There was space next to her seeing as the chair was too large for any other than the fattest man any circus might employ.  
“Are you always like this?” He asked.  
“What could you possibly mean by that?”  
“Grelle, yesterday you were much quieter, more restrained, more, well, normal if I may say so. And you didn’t act like a girl, you didn’t walk on the balls of your feet, you didn’t fluff out imaginary skirts. You acted like a seven-year-old boy, albeit one unusually precocious....  
“But now, you could be a young girl, my age. You’re louder, extravagant. So,” he paused, “who are you?”  
Grelle didn’t know how to answer that question, for she didn’t know herself. Overwhelmed, she began to cry. William, startled, seemed not to know what to do; yet he took her in his arms. He looked terrified.  
The next moment remained crystal-clear for Grelle over the course of her long life.  
As she cried in William’s arms, sad but happy that he was holding her, protecting her, he reached out, tentatively, and stroked away one of her tears. She looked up, confused, her weeping momentarily stopping. Then she felt a small, gentle brush of lips against her own.  
She cried out, a mix of fear and happiness bubbling uncontrollably out of her throat. William, seemingly horrified at what he’d done, jumped up and ran down the stairs. Grelle had had no time to process what had just happened. She leant back in the chair and rocked herself back and forth, until it was time to go to dinner.  
At dinner, William would not meet her eyes. All at once a red-hot anger overtook her, and she wanted to accuse William, to shout at him, to cause a scene. But she stayed rooted to her chair, making small talk with Aunt Grace.  
“Grelle?” said her aunt, “Are you listening? I was just saying that a place has opened up for William – he’s off to Westminster tomorrow! Isn’t it wonderful? We were starting to think that he’d never get in... Grelle? Listen, darling. Now, as I was saying...”  
Ah, I think that’s a good place for me to leave it, no? Well, goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember to comment and/or give kudos if you enjoyed it! Hugs to everyone who's read and supported so far :)


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